


The Beast in the Gloaming

by knifeear



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-18 16:10:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3575589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knifeear/pseuds/knifeear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Corypheus, Lavellan dreams.</p><p>The Inquisitor held back the sky and withstood the wrath of heaven, and now at night the Beyond fills with dreams that hound her sleep.</p><p>[drabble]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beast in the Gloaming

_The Inquisitor held back the sky and withstood the wrath of heaven, and now at night the Beyond fills with dreams that hound her sleep._

Here she sees ten thousand crystal spires shattering as deep magicks from before the time of man stream out of the world; there the husk of a high dragon crumbles and is lost as dust to the winds. A white-gold hart with flashing hooves and a dozen proud tines streaks west across the Silent Plains, a fell wolf snapping at its heels, only for it to turn and gore him. Shrouded in half-light, a cowled figure slumbers alone in a sacred grove, where in another world a fey forest-lord and his mortal beloved lie entwined under the blackberry vines.

She dreams that she’s the Keeper’s courser, chasing He Who Hunts Alone all across the Fade before catching him by the tail and dragging from his chest a howl so bitter that even the stars flee in fear. She dreams of Pride, crowned with an animal skull and lounging balefully on a throne of elven bones. And she dreams that in an ancient nemeton she stands defiantly before a wolf-god. He bids her - lay her marked hand in his jaws, that he might demonstrate his fidelity - instead she proclaims him _harellan_ and tears off his ear for her prize.

Now a great hulking beast stalks the gloaming, pelt dark as pitch, myriad eyes blazing like hot coals; it lunges and takes off her hand at the wolf-joint, but even as she moves to cleave its foul head in twain it claws out its own blackened heart. At the last, all the world echoes with the clamor of its torment, and somewhere in the distance Compassion weeps.

**Author's Note:**

> A short spiritual sequel to this drabble exists: "The Wolf at Heaven's Door" (http://archiveofourown.org/works/3575697).
> 
> Posted to Tumblr if you would prefer to read it there instead - http://jaalamadarav.tumblr.com/post/113003853828/after-corypheus-lavellan-dreams


End file.
